Leading for the Future: Education in a Multi-Pandemic World
In 2015 Irina Bokova, the first female Director General of UNESCO, anticipated the unprecedented disruption wrought by the COVID-19 crisis five years later, when she aptly observed that education today must be about “learning to live on a planet under pressure.” This entails both cultivation of skills and competencies needed to thrive in all facets of life – socially, economically, physically, and mentally – and engagement in domains outside the traditional purview of education, including societal and environmental justice. Now, spurred on by the pandemic, a new generation of education leaders, practitioners and policymakers alongside, is deploying innovative tools and ideas to shape the next class of global citizens and leaders, who promise a path to a brighter future. This session will explore the future of leadership and what this next generation of education leaders need to know to be ‘future-literate’ and lead the future of learning in light of the uncertainty brought about by multiple, concurrent global pandemics, including public health crises, systemic social injustice, economic inequality and climate change. More specifically, how can leaders and policymakers use this once in a generation disruptor - COVID-19 - as a starting point to practically and meaningfully change systems and mindsets, which in many cases and contexts have never served our students or our world well, to redesign learning so it is both relevant and impactful to learners?
